Thursday, September 24, 2009

Now gay marriage is socialist too. Which means that since Obama is socialist, his wife must be a man. IT ALL MAKES SO MUCH SENSE NOW.

We won't even get into the fact that no, there is no real basis for objection to "group marriage" either, that it is entirely possible to construct fair legal frameworks for it should it ever become an issue, and that in the final analysis, government has precisely zero business telling free citizens how they may or may not associate. That's in that whole "Constitution" thing the birthers and deathers and teabaggers keep claiming they're "strict constructionists" of. He might as well also ban communes, which are freely associating groups of free citizens, BUT THEY'RE SOCIALIST, and thus right out as far as he's concerned.

Someone is intellectually dishonest when he/she advocates a position that he/she knows is false or not supported by evidence. The person essentially knows better, but still behaves dishonestly. I don't doubt that King dislikes (and probably hates) homosexuals, but there is probably some intellectual dishonesty in associating a rights movement with socialism. It's a buzzword that automatically creates a negative connotation and can even discredit the most benign proposition, even if there is no legitimate connection (hint: there isn't).

Marriage laws inherently legitimize or illegitimate how citizens can relate/associate to one another. That's just what they do. The question is whether that is just (and constitutional), particularly regarding homosexuals. A lot of people, left and right, believe it is wrong and the worst kind of big government--the Orwellian government that legislates on issues that should be of no concern to government. Should our government really tell us what's allowed based upon nothing but our very genetic identity. African-Americans might have an answer for you. And to stick with the Hitler-rhetoric pervading the health care debate (except in this case it is at least tangentially related, rather than absolutely absurd), Jews might also have an answer for you.

"Someone is intellectually dishonest when he/she advocates a position that he/she knows is false or not supported by evidence. The person essentially knows better, but still behaves dishonestly."

That description sounds like it's covered by "dishonest". Obviously a dishonest person knows better, or they wouldn't be guilty of being dishonest, just mistaken or deluded. Adding "intellectually" before "dishonest" in such a case just sounds like an affectation.

"Marriage laws inherently legitimize or illegitimate how citizens can relate/associate to one another."

That's a step backward from the assertion that those laws are "telling free citizens how they may or may not associate". It would seem that marriage laws aren't telling people how they can associate between themselves. They can associate how they like.

"A lot of people, left and right, believe it is wrong and the worst kind of big government--the Orwellian government that legislates on issues that should be of no concern to government."

If that's "the worst kind of big government", then would be fair to say that almost no one in the history of Western civilization has any experience with small-to-medium-sized government.

Your final comment is so incredibly pointless. He's saying that the worst form of big government relates to issues that aren't collective action problems, but small scale, personal issues like marriage. "The Orwellian government that legislates on issues that should be of no concern to government" is a general condemnation of that style of big government intervention (because, unlike economic issues or security issues, there is very little broad "societal welfare" reasoning that can be applied). It is not to say that by interfering in those issues, a government qualifies for the "category" of big government. This is such a smart ass remark.

A final note- I highly doubt that "small government" has actually existed in a successful and functional form for a VERY long time.

Congratulations, anonymous. You're right, intellectual dishonesty=dishonesty. It's actually a form of dishonesty. So let's never use any modifiers to explain what we're talking about, because being specific is affectation. While we're at it, let's not call this a blog, let's just call it a website, or better yet, a computer program. Let's just be as vague as we possibly can, because anything else would be pretentious.

Or how about not calling people out for using commonly used words and phrases that you don't like? Maybe you can try leaving comments that are actually substantial? I think that would be better for everyone.